I`m Kinda new to this game can someone help me?
Millerguy74
Member Posts: 44
I`m used to the 3.5 rules and i am confused about what thaco is and why low armor class seems to be good also i keep dying by wolves i`m a gnome illusionist thief
2
Comments
Low armour class is good because it's defined that way. It starts at 10 (= "no protection") and improves by becoming a lower number (and eventually a negative number). It ties in with the way THAC0 works (see above).
When you're fresh out of Candlekeep, yes, wolves can be dangerous. If necessary, run away! If you run in circles and keep the wolf following you, then that gives your companion(s) a chance to plink the wolf with ranged weapons. A couple of good hits should be enough to take down an ordinary wolf. (If the wolf switches target to attack your companion, then switch roles and attack while your companion runs.)
Simply go for the lowest and problem solved, you don't really need to know more.
-Pause and save often. Both are life savers. If you don't pause in battle, you will die.
-Don't rush the main story. Get a party of six, asap. Then talk to everyone at least two times and do sidequests.
-As a Gnome Thief/Illusionist, max Open Locks and Find Traps before anything else. You don't need stealth, you got magic. Neither Detect Illusions.
Open Locks/Find Traps are priorities. Unless you picked Imoen for example but one Thief is enough.
-If you have high INT (most likely maxed at 19) you can read most of the scrolls without failure. But still, always save before writing spells from scrolls.
-The ideal party composition, is two frontliners, two mages, one thief and a healer.
You already cover two roles, so you need a healer (Cleric or Druid) another Mage, two frontliners and whatever you fancy.
It all depends on alignment.
-Be careful, for evil parties, don't raise Reputation above 18. For Good parties, don't drop it below 3 I think.
-Always have your highest Charisma NPC as party leader. It helps with Morale checks. And also have them talk to NPCs, you can also use the Friends spell to improve disposition.
Use the 1st level spell Armor if you have it. It gives you a bonus of 4, so if you already have DEX 18, you would get AC of 2, which is pretty good.
When you look at armor description, the AC stated is the base armor class you get when wearing it. For exemple the scale mail and Armor spell both have AC6. That's the armor class you get when wearing it, if you had no dexterity bonus. Magic items such as a dagger +2 or armor +2 actually decrease the number by 2.
As a mage/thief I think you can wear a small shield (or maybe just a buckler). That sould help protect you a bit, but stay out of melee as much as possible. For mages there are bracers of armor that act like a permanent armor and also some potions that give a temporary boost to your AC.
Your best bet most of the time will be to pelt enemies with arrows while the warriors of the group take the attention off of weaker characters, but there will be some enemies in the game which require magical weapons to hit and that means having to use uncommon magical arrows to hit them for example which are disposable and need to hit to be worth using them (they would be better utilized by a warrior class better skilled in using bows). For those situations where you have to hit with magical weapons, a good short sword, some defensive/armor spells, good Dexterity for AC bonus, and Single Weapon Style for another AC bonus will make you decent enough to send into the fray with your Fighters and such for some battles.
There's also the option of using backstab in steallth/invisibility, however with a new player totally understanding how backstab works may not be the case so ignoring backstab won't lose you much cus you can cast spells for damage.
For an Illusionist/Thief, Dexterity and Intelligence are your primary stats. Dexterity for Thieves, and Intelligence for Mages so hopefully those are your two highest stats for your character. Constitution is also useful for most characters at around 15 or 16 for some extra hitpoints each level. This will help make sure you don't die quite as much early in the game if you have a few extra hitpoints and enemies aren't able to hit you as often with your high Dexterity giving you better AC.
The other people in the thread covered all the other basics, so I'll end it there for my post. Hope you have a lot of fun playing the game, and welcome.